Behavioural Finance

Shortly after Nokia announced that earnings and growth will be lower for one quarter due to its product cycles, the market responded (July 27, 2000) by trading nearly 3% of the companies entire cap and thereby erasing nearly $70 billion in market capitalisation. That means that although the company’s earnings per share where up 77% over the previous year, the share price went down 27% on 121 million shares traded, because of one single announcement. How is this to explain?

First the theory of modern finance will be described. Then the text continues with the mergence of behavioural finance and the third part presents some of the behavioural factors that influence decision making according to behavioural finance. Criticism of behavioural finance will follow and the assignment will end with my conclusion.